


r^-T. E C T U R E , 



ON 



The Source of all Civilization 



AND 



The Means of Pfeserifinpur Civil and Relipus Libeftf, 

DELIVERED BEFORE 

THE YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY AND SOCIAL UNION, 
OF THE CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, 

BY 

Rev. ISIDOR KALISCH, D., D., 

f^abbi of the Hebrew Congregation, Indianapolis. 



*' It is the end an^ aim of the Present to submit everything to the 
inspection of the idea supplied us by reason only." — Fichte. 



ECOND EDITION. 



INDIANAPOLIS : 

INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL COMPANY, PRINTERS, 

1864. 



/? 



To THE YoTjxG Men's Literary axd Social Union of the 

City of Indianapolis, this Lecture is most 

respectfully dedicated 

BY THE AUTHOK. 

Gentlemen : 

Accept the best I know and the best I can give you. Endeavor 
to hasten the time when there shall be a dominion of reason engender- 
ing a just and powerful new public life in the minds and actions of our 
nation. 



LECTURE 

On the source of all civilization and the means of 
preserving our civil and religious liberty. 



A survey of the history of nations shows to every clear- 
sighted searcher after truth, that mankind is generally pro- 
gressing to a better state as to physical, moral and intellect- 
ual improvement. 

Although generations are constantly coming and disappear- 
ing, we observe, nevertheless, that all the seeds of culture 
and enlightenment which have been cast by individuals before 
hundreds and thousands of years into the wide furrows of 
time, have, through all change, not been lost, but ripen to 
charming blossoms and yield finally delicious fruits. 

As the stars rise and set in the firmament, and even the 
remotest and smallest one does not appear there in vain, 
but is shedding its mild and twinkling light, just so is the 
smallest intellectual power never lost, but has been, and is, ir- 
radiating the whole human race by its salutary beams, until 
the sun of knowledge will rise and shine in full glory to the 
later generations. 

Men make not only gigantic progress in arts and sciences, 
but also in morals, and therefore become generally better, 
more civilized and judicious. 

Prejudice, superstition, fanaticism, intolerance and mania 
of persecution vanish daily more and more, and nearly every- 
where speak the laws loudly and energetically of equality, of the 
civil rights of all men, of people's sovereignty, and antiquated 
political principles are changed, altered or abolished by de- 
grees according to the spirit of the times. 

Slavery and vassalage have not only been abolished near 
everywhere in civilized Europe, but also in our beloved Union, 
the model of all republics, they are torn up by the roots by a 
majority of the people with unprecedented vigor and sacri- 
fices. 



We ask now who and what was it that produced such a 
high state of human culture in the United States ? Who 
and what is it, that is yet unremittingly promoting the same? 
Was and is it the Republican Party, by laborious exertions 
and continued efforts of its great statesmen and distinguished 
orators? Yes. What then is the source of civilization gen- 
erally? 

And we receive upon these questions a double answer. 
Some maintain, that the practical philosophy, namely: 1. 
The common ethics as the doctrines of the value, end and aim 
of human actions generally. 2. As moral philosophy (pre 
cepts of virtue and manners) by application of the common 
ethics to the internal spiritual life of man; and 3. Politics as 
application of the common ethics to the external social rela 
tions as well as the theoretical philosophy, namely: 1. The 
common metaphysics of manners or the common doctrine of 
the duties of man; 2. The metaphysical doctrine of virtue; and 
3. The metaphysical politics or jurisprudence being the sinew 
of life of all improvements, and ennobling of the nations, 
and others a^ssert that Christianity is the main-spring of all 
civilization of mankind. 

In regard to the public and secret human evils and crimes, 
civil and personal miseries, infirmities and failings, and es- 
pecially all the hinderances of beneficial progress and im- 
provement of culture, there is a conflicting opinion between 
the panegyrists of Christianity and the admirers and retainers 
of philosophy. One party is laying them to the charge of the 
other, and treat its subject disdainfully and contemptuously, 
nay, very often also with violent passion, and both refer us to 
historical facts. The christian theologians, the reverend 
preachers, decry philosophy, or human wisdom, as they please 
to term it, in their works as well as from their pulpits, and 
proclaim to all the world, that it is the source where all the 
errors and faults came from and are still coming, by which 
the community is and has been always deluged everywhel-e. 
It can not be imagined, they say, any frivolity or indiscre- 
tion which has not been represented once by a philosopher. 

The philosophy is, as the French thinker Bayle confessed 
in the 17th century, an escharotic powder, consuming the 
putrid flesh as long as there is any of it, but afterwards it cor- 
rodes sound flesh, marrow and bones. 

The philosophers maintain, on the contrary, that as long as 
there are positive religions, we hear of fanatics, wonders, wars, 
impostors and deceived people. 

It is true, that there are also penitents, visionaries and 



hypocrites in China and Turkey as well as in Europe and 
America ; but there is no religion in existence upon the whole 
face of the earth, where such a spirit of intolerance is prevail- 
ing as in that religion confessed and taught by christian 
priests. 

Early in the first centuries when the christians had risen to 
dominion and power, they refused the Jews and Heathen all 
kinds of human feelings with an unparalleled hard-heartedness 
and a shocking ferocity and did not grant them justice or tol- 
eration. 

The severity of the rage of persecution of the christian 
Emperors, Lords and Bishops grew fiercer from year to year 
and from century to century. 

In all the cities of the great Roman Empire, the heathen 
temples were closed by force, and all the public property of 
the heathen was confiscated in order to enrich the christian 
churches. 

They stoned, murdered and plundered a great many non- 
christians, and thought to serve God by this crying sin. 

They did not teach, dispute and fight with words and ex- 
pressions, but with Auto Da Fee, poniards, tortures and dun- 
geons. 

A religion that produced such effects, a religion which excited 
so much hatred and intolerance, and stimulated bloody perse- 
cutions against all persons entertaining difi*erent opinions or 
which authorized to rob and plunder property belonging to 
others has surely not contributed to promote civilization and 
culture, but to a very great demoralization. 

And indeed since Christianity has been an established re- 
ligion in the Roman Empire, all the beautiful and bright 
virtues of antiquity, by which it has been victorious in three 
continents, became weaker and weaker and expired finally al- 
together, and degeneracy and immorality were coming on 
originated by very obliging priests of the alone-saving faith 
who had always had in store heavenly remissions of chris- 
tian sins and vices and a purification from christian guilt. 

If we study history, says the philosopher, with an unbi- 
assed mind, and lay aside the christian spectacles to see 
the ancient facts, we must confess, that Rome, once crowned 
with glory and the ruler of the earth, fell dangerously sick 
during the time of several christian emperors and died finally 
of the efi'ects of Christianity. They endeavored to establish 
Christendom by force and by the edge of the sword. 

Yes, the spirit of christian intolerance has been growing 
in such a degree, that it engendered even among the differ- 



ent christian sects the most formidable religious wars with all 
heinous crimes. 

From 772-803 the emperor Charles, the Great, persecuted 
the Saxons furiously. 

He drove them by thousands into the rivers in order to be 
baptized. 

4500 prisoners refusing to become christians, he ordered to 
be slaughtered at once, and forced their commander, Witte- 
kind, to be baptized and to embrace Christianity. 

In the 11th century all the christians who were considered 
as heretics, were burnt alive as Manichees, and a great many 
Jews were either converted by force or cruelly murdered. 

In the 12th century Count Emich, of Leiningen, and Arch- 
Bishop Ruthard, of Mainz committed horrible massacres 
among the Jews on the Rhine ; because some Monks pre- 
tended to have found upon the grave of Jesus a letter from 
heaven in which the conversion of Jews was demanded in de- 
finite terms. 

In the 13th century Pope Inocence the III., and Gregor 
IX. founded the formidable inquisition, the court of condem- 
nation of intellectual freedom, and the Franciscans, Domini- 
cans, the hounds of the Lord, or Jacobins and the Carme- 
lites became the terror of the free thinking christians and 
of the Jews. The great German poet, Halier, remarks with 
a just indignation : 

"Cruel tyrant, cursed rage of fanatics, 

Glowing alvv^ays wild against heretics, 

Thou didst not rise out of Cerberus foam 

"Which vents in hell's solitary gloom, 

1^0 ! Thou art born of the sainted breast. 

And th}^ parent is priest's boiling chest. 

Speaking but of love with pioiis care, 

And yet showing fury everywhere. 

Ere a Pope a sovereign became 

And a man assumed God's holy name. 

All who did not go the priesthood's path, 

Yv'ere made \netims of their fiendish wrath. 

"Who had drowned with blood the ground of Toulouse?" 

The poet alludes here to the atrocious actions of the inqui- 
sition established at Toulouse 1229, which ordered all heretics 
to be buried alive. 

1484 an Inquisition was introduced in Spain which, up to 
the year 1808, offered up to God 343,000 innocent human 
creatures as sacrifices, by which this pretended pious institu- 
tion tortured and murdered the bravest men. 

And besides these cruelties generally committed, how 



/f/ 



shocking was the fatal destiny of millions of poor Jews in the 
Christian empires ! 

A lamb among seventy wolves, as Jewish Bards bitterly* 
lament in their elegies. 

The Jews, who have been commanded in the Pentateuch, 
(Lev. xix : 34,) to love the stranger like themselves, without 
any distinction of nation or creed, and have never flinched 
from their duty ; the Jews who watched with scrupulous 
care and anxiety over the most holy human records, and their 
only crime was the belief in a primitive cause, namely in one 
God, were hated, despised, plundered and murdered cruelly 
everywhere. 

Instead of pitying such a noble people, which were spread 
over the whole world, and having compassion on them, sup- 
porting the weak and protecting them against violence, rob- 
bery and spoliation, they preferred to treat them with inhu- 
man and unjust severity, and to oppress them with heavy, ex- 
orbitant taxes. 

The only relief they offered them was either to take the 
cross or. to die shamefully. 

And, indeed, there has been no public or natural calamity 
which has not been attributed to the unfortunate Jews. 

Thus, for instance, maintained the Pope 1569, that on ac- 
count of the Jews an earthquake happened in Ferarra in Ita- 
ly, although the Duke well remarked, that he can hardly be- 
lieve it ; because 12 Christian Churches fell into ruins at that 
time, and not one Jewish Synagogue. 

I could speak volumes on this subject, how the Jews have 
been wilfully misrepresented, nicknamed and disgraced by the 
clergy, to disseminate and to nourish a hatred against them 
among their Christian brethren, and to raise persecution 
against this unhappy but meritorious and innocent people. 
I will, however, says the philosopher, restrict myself to the 
only fact how Christians have treated their own brethren in 
faith. 

1572 thirty thousand Protestants, or Hugenots, so called as 
a nickname, because they were only allowed to hold Divine 
services at night, like a certain specter Hugo, were cruelly 
massacred in all the provinces of France, and this action was 
considered as a work of Christian piety. 

This terrible slaughter lasted 30 days. 

It is generally known under the name Bartholomew massa- 
cre, for which the Pope, the Holy Father of the Catholics, 
proclaimed a year of jubilee. 

1618-48 raged, in the name of Christianity, the 30 years' 



8 

war, and a fiendish carnage was committed in a great many 
empires. And if we look into the history of England we 
find, that even there have been oftered up a great many hu- 
man sacrifices on the Christian altar. 

There were either the Catholics or the Roundheads, or the 
Presbyterians or Puritans, etc., etc., who, as soon as they had 
the power, persecuted cruelly all who differed with them in 
religious opinions, treated them with severity and suppressed 
them. 

Should or can all this be called Christian civilization? 

Yes, when the pious Spanish christians came as strangers 
hither to America, they murdered forty millions of men, wo- 
men and children, who had not given them any offence or harm, 
drove away the others, and took in possession their land, 
houses, and all their property. 

Indeed ! not humanity, enlightenment, culture and admin- 
istration of justice, but blind fanaticism followed everywhere 
the footsteps of Christianity. 

It is impossible, says the philosopher, that Christianity can 
or could ever favor the progress of mankind ; because it teach- 
es explicitly, as the Reverend Theologians maintain, that rea- 
son is a w^eak, blind, corrupted and seducing leader, and that 
we shall take our understanding into custody of the faith, as 
it reads in the 1st Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians x : 5, 
'^ Casting dovfn imagination, etc., and bringing into captivity 
every thought to the obedience of Christ." 

Hence Christianity teaches, that we shall not inquire about 
the most important human affjiirs reasonably, but shall believe 
without any investigation. 

It enjoins a passive credulity and puts reason to sleep. 

Nay ! it banishes the spirit out of the province of reality 
and puts shackles upon good sense, the only leaders of men 
to reach a higher perfection. 

It is like a circle which can never progress. 

It extinguishes the sun in the empire of ideas, and there- 
fore it has been and is only the author of spiritual uight. 

Now it is a decided fact, that our religious, political and 
literary horizon is enlarging more and more, and that our 
views, experience and knowledge have greatly increased, and 
grow still to an extent which the illustrious age of the Greeks 
and Romans could not imagine. 

The question is obtruding therefore upon the mind of every 
close observer of humanity — Who and what has effected this 
gigantic progress ? 

A great many would certainly exclaim, it is Christianity 






9 /^^ 

that produced this progressive state of human affairs, what- 
ever the philosophers may gainsay it ; because only in such 
empires, where the majority of the citizens are Christians, civ- 
ilization and culture are going onward and upward. 

But here I have to remark, that it is an erroneous conclu- 
sion : hoc propter hoc, namely, if we infer from the acciden- 
tal coinciding of two events, that one is the cause of the other. 

I will illustrate and prove this now by the following exam- 
ple : Suppose it is raining and my table is standing near the 
window, and I would draw a conclusion ; as my table is stand- 
ing near the window, therefore it is raining out of doors to- 
day. 

Every reasonable man would admit, that this is a false in- 
ference, because the two appearances depend on different 
causes and are not connected at all. 

It is just the same case with Christianity and civilization. 

Both met accidentally together ; but the origin, growth and 
blossom of civilization we do not owe to Christianity, but to 
other causes. 

To convince ourselves from this fact, we shall endeavor to 
observe closely the course which civilization has taken since 
the remotest time until now. 

If we gaze upon the colossal ruins which we find in Theban 
in Egypt, that has been destroyed 4,000 years ago, we must 
make the conclusion, that civilization was highly advanced in 
Egypt at that time. 

Eor we perceive, that the use of sculpture, of the art ol 
printing, of the fine enamel works, of glass and precious met- 
als which have been made there by the Egyptians, was in such 
a degree of perfection, that it is proved beyond doubt art and 
science had then attained a remarkable development. 

And so it is reported in the ancient literature, that thou- 
sands of years ago, before Christianity was thought of, as-- 
tronomy, physics, hydraulics, chemistry and mathematics flour- 
ished in Egypt, and the philosophers studied everything that 
was useful, considering the study of man and nature as the- 
highest prosperity. 

We find, furthermore, in the records of the past, that peo-- 
ple flocked hither from all quarters in'order to be instructed 
in Egyptian schools. 

Thus Herodotus, the father of history, tells- us, that tke - 
Greeks borrowed a great portion of their arts and sciences from 
the Egyptians. Under the expression Egpptians, however, 
is not only meant the heathen, but is also included the Egypt- 
ian Jews. 



.10 

Although a great many are inclined to consider now a days 
the Jewish monuments of knowledge as obsolete, others as 
containing dangerous errors, shaking the prevailing estab- 
lishments in the empire of reason in their very foundations, 
and finally others as self-complacent pride, they are neverthe- 
less such productions which the great philosophers, Pytha- 
goras,. Plato and Aristotle considered as the most pre- 
cious treasures of wisdom and fountain-head of knowledge, 
and did not hesitate to draw much from their sources. 

The historical report about the intimate intercourse of the 
Greek sages with the Jewish philosophers is not a fiction of 
proud Rabbis as some, perhaps, may suppose, but is very old 
and is stated by heathen and christian authors. 

Thus relates Eusebius (praep. Evang. ix : c. 3.) Kleanthus, 
a disciple of Aristotle informs us, that Aristotle had an ac- 
quaintance with a Jew in Palestine who was educated in 
the Egyptian school, with whom he conversed about philo- 
sophical subjects, and confessed, that he learned more from 
the Jew than the Jew could have learned from him. 

Even so remarks the very reliable ancient historian, Philo, 
that the learned Jews in Alexandria have shown to the liea- 
then, without restraint and in a clear manner, the foolishness, 
:groundlessness, perversity and immoralitj of their heathen 
rites and doctrines. 

All those heathen who aspired for truth and morality paid 
homage to the Jewish religious principles. 

Aye, even Princes of Greek Macedonian origin, became 
true adherents of Judaism. Hence, it must be admitted bj 
every lover of truth, that the Egyptian Jews had a great 
share in promoting the civilization of nations. 

Thus acknowledges also Numenius of Apamen, that the 
-great philosopher, Plato has been nothing else but an Athe- 
nian speaking Moses. 

It is therefore obviously proved by all this, that the schools 
of the Alexanderian Jews gained a very great reputation, and 
c-that there must have been among them many original think- 
ers, so that Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle were considered as 
their disciples. 

Egypt has consequently been the seat of learning and cul- 
ture, where all the ancient literati have learned arts and sci- 
ences that reached us through the middle ages. 

Thales who was born at Milet, 640 b. c. e., established 

first in his fatherland the knowledge which he acquired in the 

; schools of Egyptian priests. Pythagoras who was born 534 

b. the c. e., initiated himself like Thales into the mysteries of 



11 /f^ 



Egypt in order to transplant scientific researches of this coun- 
try to his native land, and has given by that means another 
direction to the studies, having employed their method of ex- 
perience. 

He and his disciples had- already very correct ideas 9f the 
parallax, the general arrangements concerning the different 
parts of our solar system and of the place occupied by the 
earth. 

They maintain that the earth revolves around the sun, that 
the comets Iiave their periodical revolutions, and that the stars 
are even as many suns around which other stars are moving, 

A truism which has been attacked until the time of Gal- 
ileis. 

A hundred years later, namely, 434 b. the c. e. appeared 
Plato. 

He was already a philosopher when twenty years of age 
and acknowledged after having heard Socrates, a primitive 
general cause as a supreme being, describing it in Timaeus 
as th-e father of the universe, and maintained like his great 
teacher, Socrates, that the human soul is immortal, and that 
mankind will merely gain its destiny upon earth bj a true 
philosophy. 

These heathen philosophers laid down fundamental maxims, 
as Christianity did, and could not teach them better in later 
•times. 

I pass now over in silence all other philosophical systems 
of the Grreeks and Romans, and will only mention some facts 
that the heathen made constantly progress in the civilizing 
arts and sciences. 

In a memorable poem entitled, ^'De natura rerum," com- 
,pos«d by Lucretius, a cotemporary of Cicero, (106 b. c. e.) 
we find the very correct idea that the fall of heavy bodies is 
not alike respecting all bodies, a minute description of the 
flash of lightning, etc., etc. 

In Seneca are observations given about th^ magnifying 
which glass globes produce by refraction and concave mir- 
rors by reflection and even some other ones about the colors 
of the rainbow, forming themselves by prisms and about the 
decrease of heat in the highest regions of atmosphere. 

He speaks of different colors of the stars and maintain-s, 
that the comets have a regular course, and that the earth- 
quakes are engendered through the fire in the centre of the 
terrestial globe. 

Plinius (23 after the q. e.) jives us some views in his natural 



12 

history about the formation of electricity by friction and about 
diflferent electric appearances. 

The ancient literati seem, according to Plinius, to have oc- 
cupied themselves with conducting the lightning. 

He says in reference to Tullus Hostilius : (Plin. lib. ii : c. 5B.) 

" Quod scilicet fulminis evocationem imitatum parum rite 
Tullum Hostilium ietum fulmine." 

That is, in the same moment, when he tried to carry down 
the lightning in the same manner as Numa, (716 b. the c. e.) 
but unskillfully was Tullus killed by the lightning. 

We find also in Lucan, a Roman poet, (38 b. the c. e.) in 
reference to the same subject a very remarkable passage : 

a -:•:- -;i:- -:•:- -:;:• Aruns dispersos fulminis ignes, 
Colligit, et terra moesto cum murmure condit." 

[Lucan Phars. i, 606.) 

That is, ^'It is said of Aruns, who was very experienced in 
the motions of the flash of lightning, that he collected the 
fire scattered in the air, and buried it in the earth." 

Probably these ideas occasioned Benjamin Franklin to dis- 
cover the conduction of lightning. 

Even so have passed over to the Greeks and Romans the 
chemical arts which the Egyptians exercised with the most 
happy results. 

For the Egyptians were very skillful in the art of dying 
stuffs, in the manipulation of metals, in the cleaning of soda 
or natron, and extracting the kali of the ashes. 

Next to them the Phoenicians have had a very extensive 
knowledge in the arts which depend on chemistry. 

They were expert in the use of copper, gold, silver, lead, 
tin and iron. 

They understoood how to win these metals of their ore, to 
alloy them and to produce different metallic mixtures, for in- 
stance, litharge, vitriol, etc., etc. 

Thus was mankind flourishing more and more, and became 
always richer in spirit, inventions, discoveries and all kinds 
Qr human culture. 

But as soon as Christianity began spreading over the Roman 
Empire, all knowledge, arts and sciences died away, and the 
development of civilization was retarded and checked. 

For all colleges and acadamies, where the sciences were 
taught by non-christians were closed by force, and instead of 
studying the subjects, they commenced wrangling and quarrel- 
ing about mere expressions and words, and all sunk into bar- 
barity and extreme darkness. Such was the state of afi'airs 



until the 8th century, when Leo, the Isaurian, this furious 
iconoclast threatened with banishment the last remnants of 
sciences and arts. 

His cruelty was so great that he let burn at night twelve 
clergymen, who were his ecclesiastical counsellors, but did not 
participate in his abhorrence against images. 

Everything seemed consequently to contribute to the des- 
truction of sciences, and all the exertions of human spirit 
from the whole antiquity in Egypt, Asia, Grreece and Italy 
would have been lost altogether from civilization if a great 
many books had not escaped the banishment on account of 
having been partly preserved in monastries and partly by the 
Arabians, who by their intercourse with the Jews and Greeks, 
became acquainted with scientific knowledge, and interested 
themselves indefatigably for culture, philosophy, medicin and 
natural history, and preserved thus the original works of the 
Greeks and Romans. 

They established universities in Asia, Africa and Europe, 
especially in Cordova in Spain, where the most eminent Greek 
works have been translated and studied, and promoted the 
sciences generally, so that their seats of learning have also 
been frequented by Christians. 

During that time when they restricted themselves in the 
Christian states to the cloisters, where the most renowned 
Bishops condemned the study of the ancients and did no- 
thing else, but compose biographies of saints, collected le- 
gends, draw up a register of heretics, wrote excommuni- 
cations and anathemas. Yes, during that time it was judged 
in Christian courts, not according to wise and just laws, 
but by ordeals or so-called God's judgments, and, for in- 
stance, if the suspected person could plunge the bare arm 
to the elbow in boiling water without being hurt, or could 
walk barefoot and blindfolded over nine red hot plowshares 
laid lengthwise of unequal distances and escaped unhurt, or 
could conquer in duel, or could swallow the sanctified morsel 
without bursting, or could stay with stretched arms in the 
form of a cross the longest time, was argued innocent, be- 
cause this was an evidence that God let such persons conquer. 
During the time, I say, when all these went on in the Chris- 
tian Empire, the study of sciences, arts and literature, and 
the endeavors for the civilization of nations were to be found 
among the Mohammedans. 

Though Charles, the Great, from 768-814, had established 
schools which were superintended by men whom he called 
from England and Ireland, and where the study of rhetoric, 



14 

dialectis and astronomy were pursued with great ardor, all 
those schools were nearly closed during the reign of his suc- 
cessors immediately after him, namely, under Ludwig, the pi- 
ous, and Charles, the bald, and Europe was plunged in dark- 
ness until the 13th century. 

In the 13th century appeared Roger Baco, a Franciscan 
Professor at Oxford, with the surname " Magnus, " and who 
was also called " Doctor admirabilis, " the wonderful teacher^ 

It came into his mind, probably occasioned by the study of 
Pythagoras, to consult nature through experiments, and to 
shake off the yoke of scholastic authority. 

This was, however, an unprecedented innovation, and caused 
him severe persecutions. 

He was sentenced by a Franciscan General to an imprison- 
ment for life and to live on bread and water ; because of hav- 
ing tried to destroy prejudices with which his age was filled up. 
He was afterwards released with a proviso, that he should not 
meddle any more with physics. 

Hence, it was Christianity which threw all sorts of ob- 
stacles in the way of civilization, checked, suppressed and 
ehoked it altogether in the 14th century. Only from the 
time in the 15th century when a revival of the original class- 
ical works took place and the old system of the Greek, Ori- 
entals and the so-called Philosophy of Moses were looked for. 

Especially as the example given by Copernicus, Kepler, 
6ralilei Toricelly and others in natural philosophy was crown- 
ed with the most happy results, the minds were stirred up for 
imitating in philosophy generally, civilization commenced its 
course with renewed vigor. 

The positive religion was then from day to day much less 
considered as a source or standard of philosophical knowledge, 
and the exclusive right of giving the last decision on all sub- 
jects in question was generally adjudged to reason. 

Although the inquisition condemned, in the year 1515, the 
system of Copernicus, who revived the idea of Pythagoras, 
t^hat the earth revolves on its axis, and declared such an idea as 
false, philosophic, absurd and heretical, Galilei defended nev- 
ertheless the Capernican system in the year 1616. 

He was forced, indeed, in his 69th year of age, to abjure 
this system before the Court in Rome in the following man- 
ner : I abjure, condemn and curse the error of the motion 
of the earth, but in spite of that, he taught, that the earth 
moves on its axis. 

He was afterwards arrested, as it was expected, and sen- 
tenced to an imprisonment for life. 



15 /?S 

A violent struggle of reason with the mechanism of usages 
took place everywhere, and the opposition to the superior 
criticism of the positive religion which it arrogated over rea- 
son, became stronger more and more. 

The spirit itself wrestled with old established customs in 
order to give continually new life and stir in the march of in- 
tellect, and to render great services to truth, beauty and jus- 
tice. 

Hail to those unterrified philosophers who were not afrai(S 
of suffering persecution, and risked even their lives and liberty 
in order to build the truth on unshakable pillars, and to trace 
out the way to the coming generations which shall be taken to 
find out new truisms, and to promote civilization. 

If now the Asiatics and a great many other nations are 
benumbed in the midst of their cultivation, it is not on ac- 
count of not having embraced Christianity, but of being un- 
der the tyrannical dominion of ancient customs. 

Thus, for instance, a philosophy was and is prevailing 
among the Arabs now exactly as it was in vogue among the^ 
Christian nations in the middle ages, when positive religion 
was the center and rule of all reasonings, demanding an un- 
conditional blind faith, and checking all progress and devel- 
opment. 

Hence it follows, that only since the revival of the Platonic 
philosophy in Italy, from whence it spread extensively abroad, 
out of which came the pure systems of better wisdom, ancient 
civilization and culture have also been revived, and are con- 
stantly promoted and developed. 

The bold searcher after truth ventured to run the risk of 
being burned alive or tortured by the so-called holy inquisi- 
tion, and threw light with the torch of truth upon the works 
of darkness in all its relations and bearings. 

The great salutary principle of religious liberty and free- 
dom of conscience which they laid down and pleaded with a- 
convincing force, conquered finally, and a mild, social bond 
entwines itself by degrees around nations, trying to colne 
always nearer together in order to unite for common purposes. 

It is true, th-at the maturity of reason in the present time, * 
is thriving very slowly ; but the surer, it seems to me, will 
the high aim be gained. . 

For it is merely founded on intellectual power^ freedom off 
conscience, natural rights, high talents for the arts, and a true 
morality. 

If now this high spiritual position of humanity shall be 
preserved for the later generations, it is obviously necessary 



16 

tiiat they do not waste thousands and millions of dollars for 
Christian Mission and Tract Societies, but rather to establish 
Universities in this country also, as they are flourishing in 
Europe, where they proved always as the best center of all 
scientific knowledge and progressive enlightenment. 

For Universities, emancipated from hierarchical power and 
from the influence of every religious party or sect, are, as 
they were, the locomotives of human spirits leading them with 
the rapidity of lightning onward and upward. 

It is high time to make the public aware of the indispensi- 
ble necessity of such institutions ; because every close obser- 
ver of our public aff"airs will surely, with great sorrow, ascer- 
tain that the priests of difi"erent denominations endeavor, like 
the polypes with their tenticles, to catch every opportunity to 
meddle with politics, and nestle, wherever it is possible, their 
illiberal, absurd and antiquated ideas. 

The Universities would be the most powerful armies to pro- 
tect us against the clerical drawbacks and corruption, and 
would also be the formidable monitors on the stormy ocean of 
life to secure us our free institutions. 

Yes, a free University in every State of the Union, would 
De like a shining sun enlightening all the classes of people, 
and promoting the welfare and prosperity of all nations as 
well as of every individual in particular, without any distinc- 
tion. 

Such institutions only will be the means by which a reli- 
gion, founded on incontestible reasonable arguments, will be 
established for all mankind, difiusing brotherly love towards 
all nations, virtue and justice more and more, so that every 
barbarity and war and war-hoop will disappear for ever. 

They will bring on the time which the prophets have fore- 
seen, and the poets have dreamed, that nation against nation 
will never wage war any more, and nowhere shall force reign 
supreme, but only strict justice shall decide all and every- 
thing. 

Happy they who can promote such a great work crowned 
with blessings. But thrice happy will be those who shall live 
then to see, when the history of all nations will not be filled 
with bloody military exploits, nor with the victories of diplo- 
matic contrivances, but with the general happy achievements 
of the gigantic progress of civilization and culture of ^all 
mankind. 



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